Week 12: Developing Ideas and Designs for Launch of Authorial Artefact
Weekly Learning Objectives
By the end of this week you should be able to:
- Research and investigate how designers and makers publicise their activities or products, and the media organisations and business platforms that will be a mouthpiece for the PR and marketing of your initiative;
- Utilise analogue and digital craft to explore the production requirements of your artefact;
- Prototype and outline your next steps to support any future development;
- Manage your independent learning effectively.
Week 12: Lecture – Marketing Strategy: Case Studies
Lecture Introduction
This lecture, presented by Alec Dudson, explores a number of case study examples of marketing strategies, showcasing how practitioners launched and promoted their work.
Enjoy the lecture.
‘Out There’ Launches and promotion
Case studies
Using PR Agencies – Depending on budget
What would be the return on investment?
‘No perfect strategy, no perfect solution’
Week 12: Resources
Read | Watch | Listen
Below is this week’s list of materials. For the full module resource list, please refer to the Course Hub. We encourage you to also carry out your own independent research into themes delivered. Do not forget to use the Ideas Wall to share new ideas and thoughts.
1. Yates, D. and Price, J., (2015), Communication design: Insights from the creative industries (Links to an external site.), London: Fairchild Books
Week 12: Workshop Challenge
The Challenge
How do you build, promote and tell the story of your new product?
- Ensure you utilise analogue and digital craft to explore the production requirements of your artefact.
- At this stage we only require a prototype, a one-page outline or short video of next steps, and even production partners to support any future development. Please remember, prototyping exists to demonstrate the potential and functionality of your output – there are a number of methods / software tools to help make shortcuts so you can give a sense of the bigger picture.
- This is about expediency, fast iteration, testing and development to help an audience or business partner to see the potential of your proposition.
- This could potentially be picked up again in your final MA project.
Project:
A hard backed cloth covered archive showing the variety of styles for endpapers in antique books. The covers and endpapers in this book will be bright and plain in contrast to the rich, deep colours I’m expecting for the images inside.
So far the idea is to only have images inside, not words or images of how the marble patterns are created. I’m considering a plain index of where the examples come from; the name of the book and the date it was published. Though some feedback I’ve had suggested endpapers where sometimes re-used in new bindings.
Next steps:
Reference points:
Blog with examples and fans. Look through to find points of contact: https://www.librarything.com/topic/142094
Found an example which shows the bright endpapers intended for the book (saw this after I’d thought of it!): http://ansteybookbinding.com/endpapers/ Also a good source of reference, a place to get in touch with for advice maybe?
Reference point, could help to understand the process. May be useful when talking through possible specs with a printer: https://library.alaska.gov/documents/hist/convservation-manual.pdf
Suggestion from FB group
Taking both on-board, use a solid colour on the edges to fit it but contrast the outer cover.
Case Study – Munich ’72. The Visual Output of Otl Aicher’s Dept. XI
A recent book by Mark Holt (http://markholtdesign.com/ and one hell of a pedigree: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8vo_(design)) was a successful Kickstarter project from 2019. This is a good case study in a few ways; good example of a Kickstarter campaign page. It shows what incentives were offered for the different amounts pledged, the way the book was visualised before it existed and the presence it had across different social media.
Kickstarter
Visuals of the book were used to show what was coming and a long list of incentives were offered. I think giving as many as you can think of is the best way of attracting pledges, it will appeal to different people in different ways.
£76,750 goal
£84,657 pledged
It clearly worked.
Social Media Campaign: Facebook
Mark’s website has been switched (assuming it was previously a portfolio) to just promoting and selling the book. Made as easy as possible, just one page, one click. Users don’t have to work their way through shops and menus.
Regular posts on Facebook kept the momentum of its release.
Social Media Campaign: Instagram
Posts on Instagram stretch to around 5m long so no danger going ott.
More feedback from FB group
All the feedback has been positive and is still coming in. Useful suggestions and examples have been posted.
I plan to look for other pages and Instagram accounts to send more messages. Once I’ve created more visuals I can start posting those to avoid too much repetition of the images.
Thoughts on Incentives
Thinking about ways to lure buyers into a Kickstarter option. Everybody loves a Tote bag. One side plain, the other patterned. Would have to check production for the patterned side as it may be limited to colours.
Look and feel
I found this as an example of how I see the book in terms of production materials. This was designed by design agency Music, Manchester
Outcome
Slide presentation outlines the next steps for finding the information needed to decide on sizes, finish, unit costs and a retail price, along with finding different ways to publish and sell the product.
Reflection
Quite an exciting project now, especially considering how it came in and saved me last week. I think the first thing to do in the Next Step list would be to look for where it could be produced, I don’t think the commercial printers I use for work will be suitable but they’ll be a good place to start the search.
I’m pleased how it’s being received on the Ideas Wall as well as the FB group. The content and artwork should be pretty straightforward but I’m thinking the production won’t be quite so. Kickstarter incentives could also include prints, postcard sets or offers for two or more copies.
